Presenter's biography

Biographies are supplied directly by presenters at OFFSHORE 2015 and are published here unedited

Dr. Wei He obtained her Ph.D at department of Mechanical Engineering, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.
Prior to this, Dr. He first worked for wind energy systems at DTU in Denmark in 1990 and then worked for the wind power integration into grid at KEMA in the Netherlands.
Dr. He is a principle engineer at Statoil, Norway, where she has worked for 15 years. She has applied offshore platform experiences to offshore wind technology, and has made several technological breakthroughs. Dr. He leads four EU funded collaborative wind energy research projects and several new idea programs at Statoil.

Abstract

Innovative technologies to achieve 10 gw offshore wind farms in china

Introduction

The plan to speed up the installation of 10 GW offshore wind farms (44 new offshore wind farms) in China was recently announced. These offshore wind farms have significantly different site conditions from the offshore wind farms conditions in Europe. There are many new challenges to rapidly install and to efficiently operate 10 GW offshore wind farms in China. This study will focus on the innovative technologies developed for the offshore wind farms in China, which is related to Statoil’s task to address the offshore conditions for EU funded EERA Design Tools for Offshore Wind Farm Cluster research project.

Approach

The site conditions of most offshore wind farms in China are different from the conditions of most offshore wind farms in Europe, including the sea bed with a deep soft soil layer and the intertidal areas where the water depth varies greatly. Moreover, the supply chain related to the offshore wind farm construction in China is also different from that in Europe. The Chinese offshore wind industry has learned the offshore wind experience from Europe and developed technologies to achieve cost effective solutions and to co-use ocean space to reduce the conflicts with other industries.

Main body of abstract

This study reviews several innovative technologies developed for the first two Chinese offshore wind farms. First, the first Chinese offshore wind farm (Donghai Bridge) has 34 units of 3 MW wind turbine. From the project planning to all wind turbines connected to grid was within 20 months. A new foundation with a concrete cap and eight steel piles was invented for this site which has a high velocity ocean current and a deep soft soil sea bed conditions. Two large-scaled crane vessels used for the bridge construction were applied to install the fully assembled wind turbine unit by one offshore lift, which accelerated the installation operation of the wind farm.

Second, the second offshore wind farm in China: Rudong is located at intertidal zone, more than 200 MW capacity have been installed. These include 40*2.5MW (Goldwind); 17 *3MW (Sinovel) and 21*2.3MW. The Goldwind monopile foundations without transition pieces were installed with precision. There were five offshore lifts for the turbine installation: three for the tower, one for the nacelle and one for the assembled rotor respectively. The service vessels and tractors are creatively integrated for the operation and maintenance of the wind turbines.

Finally, in order to achieve the goal of 10 GW offshore wind farms in China, 44 new offshore wind farms have been planned in different time frames. One of the challenges is the novel and expeditious method for installation of these new offshore wind farms. The designs for cost-effective installation and service vessels have been proposed specifically for these intertidal zones.

Conclusion

Several innovative technologies have been successfully developed to meet the challenges arising from Chinese offshore wind farm site conditions and the supply chain conditions. In order to achieve the goal of 10 GW offshore wind farms in China, one of the efforts is the new designs for the cost-effective installation vessels and for the service vessels for efficient operation of 10 GW offshore wind farms in China.

Learning objectives
The plan to speed up the installation of 10 GW offshore wind farms (44 new offshore wind farms) in China .
Most Chinese offshore wind farms have significantly different site conditions from the offshore wind farms conditions in Europe, including the sea bed with a deep soft soil layer and the intertidal areas where the water depth varies greatly.

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